2 minute read
People Moves
Elon Musk
The Visionary Behind Sustainable Luxury Sports Car Manufacturer, Tesla. CEO and Founder.
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Believed by many to be the real life Tony Stark, Elon Musk is a South African-born, American entrepreneur, and self-made billionaire.
Musk’s inventive mindset began at an early age, teaching himself to code at the age of 10, and selling his first computer game - Blastar - at 12 years old for US$500.
Bullied until the age of 15, Musk immigrated to Canada with his mother and brother in 1989 at the age of 17 where he studied at Queen’s University and gained his citizenship. Musk believed it would make it easier for him to gain American citizenship by taking this route.
In 1992, Musk left Canada to study at the University of Pennsylvania. Musk gained an undergraduate degree in economics and a bachelor’s degree in physics.
Estimated Net Worth: US$151bn
Tesla Revenue:
US$31.54bn (2020)
Tesla Goes Public:
2010 (US$17 per share)
SpaceX Revenue:
US$2bn (2018)
Age: 50
Current Residence:
Austin, Texas
Did you know?
Elon Musk was an advisor in the early days of Donald Trump’s administration.
Elon Musk learnt to defend himself from bullies as a child by learning karate and wrestling.
Tesla received US$40mn in convertible debt financing in 2008 to avoid bankruptcy.
Becoming a Multi-Millionaire
After leaving the University of Pennsylvania, he went on to study a PhD in energy physics at Stanford University. This degree was, however, short lived; as the internet boom emerged, Musk dropped out of Stanford University to join the boom, launching his first company Zip2 Corporation - an online city travel guide - in 1995.
After four years, Musk sold Zip2 Corporation to a division of Compaq Computers for US$307mn, of which he made US$22mn, making him a multi-millionaire.
Founding PayPal
In 1999, Musk used US$12mn from what he made from selling Zip2 to fund the founding of X.com, one of the world’s first online banks. The following year, the company merged with Confinity; rebranding as PayPal. Musk became CEO of Paypal in the merger, but this was short-lived, with the multi-millionaire fired as CEO the same year.
Becoming a Billionaire and Founding SpaceX
In 2002, Musk became an official US Citizen. In the same year, he earned his first billion following a US$1.5bn acquisition of PayPal by eBay, of which Musk made US$165mn.
With this money, Musk used US$100mn to establish SpaceX to make colonising Mars affordable. In 2012, the company made history by launching its Falcon 9 rocket into space with an unmanned capsule, marking the first time that a private company sent a spacecraft to the International Space Station.
In 2018, the company marked another milestone, with its
